The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG)’s Board of Trustees has today appointed Professor Monica Bettencourt-Dias as its new Director. Professor Bettencourt-Dias is the first woman to lead the CRG since it was founded in the year 2000.

Professor Bettencourt-Dias, who led the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Portugal between 2018 and 2023 and is currently Group Leader at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine, is expected to take up the post in 2026. She succeeds the CRG’s long-serving Director, ICREA Research Professor Dr Luis Serrano, who will continue to maintain a research group at the institute.

Born in Portugal in 1973, Professor Mónica Bettencourt-Dias has built an international career at the forefront of cell and molecular biology. She completed her PhD at University College London investigating the regenerative properties of salamanders. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, she made key discoveries on cell proliferation, before returning to Portugal in 2006 to establish her research group at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science (IGC).

Professor Bettencourt-Dias